Will Infantino survive Fifa’s latest scandal? Trump’s involvement changes everything

Football chiefs will consider whether to push for a vote of no confidence on Gianni Infantino following another day of drastic developments surrounding the embattled Fifa president.

But Infantino’s game-breaking Fifa Forward Enterprise plan is described as “not dead yet”, with the Swiss official still pushing on with his controversial plans after the global governing body issued another round of “clarifications” overnight.

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Sources have even spoken of Infantino continuing on in the office as normal. Meanwhile, many outside his small circle are highly curious as to what he is “feeling” right now, as a previously invulnerable position has been left so exposed in a matter of days.

Above anything, it’s remarkable to think a Fifa president can continue when the most powerful continent has boycotted the World Cup, in Uefa, and two other confederations have at least prepared the ground to follow.

This all in a week that actually started with Infantino berating the media for criticism. One of his most senior advisors, Carlos Cordeiro, has also now quit, signing off with a damning statement. That’s just another development that would usually be difficult to survive.

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Federation chiefs have already started talking about the process of a vote of no confidence, which would first necessitate a meeting of the Fifa Council and then 43 member associations – a quarter of the 211 – to push for an Extraordinary Congress.

Before that, though, everyone is waiting to see how the dust settles. Football chiefs have even felt it’s all been happening too fast to even properly register.

Amid all of that, Cordeiro’s statement was still clear enough to sum up the main problems with this plan. He wrote of how Fifa “sits on billions of dollars in reserves and no debt”, ensuring that “selling a permanent stake in football’s most valuable asset to raise $4.2bn makes little sense”.

“Why this deal? Why now?”

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The JP Morgan deck for the plan is indeed said to have been “the final straw” for many member associations, including how it seemed to undervalue something as precious as the World Cup – let alone the principle of selling it off. They also pointed to contradictions in how Fifa is now bleating about consultations, but their very documents say terms have been agreed. As one involved figure said, “who agreed them?”

The exclusion of Cordeiro from the process is one of many elements that has only further baffled football.

While the former US Soccer president has been a divisive figure himself, he is seen as one of “the world’s top bankers” given his decades of work at Goldman Sachs.

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It would surely have been obvious for Infantino to include him in formulating an idea like this, not least given their proximity. But he didn’t.

Another key question being asked – of many – is how and why the arbitrary deadline of 19 September was picked.

Sources were wryly laughing at how Fifa’s “clarification” email complained at how their “planned consultation process was disrupted by incorrect media reports” only to then plough ahead with this deadline of 19 September. What would have changed if the consultation process hadn’t been “disrupted” by the media?

Sports industry figures have pointed to how a comparable deal between CVC Capital Partners and the Six Nations took two years to go through. FIFA was instead insisting on seven weeks with 211 countries, and that covering a period when most senior federation people are on holiday after a gruelling World Cup.

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It is of a piece with so many major decisions under Infantino’s Fifa being rushed through with minimal opportunity for discussion, with the latest apparently the connected expansion of the World Cup to 64 teams.

If a radical shift like this plan was being taken in normal circumstances, it would come after a strategy department had been suggesting change over a period of time, before going through the board, the finance office and legal.

Except, nothing about this is normal.

The 19 September is otherwise seen by finance figures as a standard attempt to have hard milestones in place before the plan can evolve to formal financial due diligence. It also happens to fit with key Fifa dates, given that there’s an Extraordinary Congress scheduled for 23 November – by which point the presidential nominations are due for the March 2027 election – and the deadline for that agenda is 23 September.

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Many figures naturally feel more time is essential, before even considering all the other concerns.

Ultimately, though, there was one major factor putting most voters off.

As a number of sources have said, “the association with the Trumps was just never going to fly”.

So much more of the story at least makes sense once it is viewed through the prism of the world around Donald Trump.

Infantino’s long association with a notoriously transactional US president played into a situation where he is suddenly announcing a plan that centrally involves the brother of Trump’s son-in-law – through Josh Kushner’s Thrive Capital – after a year-long plan that very few people apparently knew about.

That element is said to have infuriated big hitters in the financial community, too. Here was “the most secure, most revenue-generating, most global asset” coming on the market and firms from Silverlake to CVC were not even at the table. That alone could cause awkward discussions at the next round of investor conversations.

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And yet it is apparently going to Thrive Capital, which is seen in that sphere as an internet/software venture capital fund.

So, why Kushner?

Many are also seeing Trump’s long flattery of Infantino with a different perspective. As one source puts it, “he talks about him in a way he doesn’t even talk about Benjamin Netanyahu”.

Infantino has had longer and deeper access to the White House than almost anyone outside politics, and stayed close to Trump longer after the type of timescale where relationships with other comparable figures are burned. Look at Elon Musk, for example.

Was it connected to this plan?

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The Trump connection could also dictate where this goes next.

As well as a vote of no confidence, federation chiefs have been weighing up potential challengers to be announced in November – from Concacaf’s Victor Montigliani to Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi – but they do still see a path to survival for Infantino.

If he says he understands the views of the many dissenters and goes in another direction, he could stay.

That direction could even be to still create Fifa Forward Enterprises but without the private equity element, as Uefa have done with Uefa Events SA. The record World Cup profits could then be distributed to member associations at $20m each and everyone moves with a contrite but weakened Infantino.

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But will he do that given this connection to the Trumps? What has actually been discussed in the secret negotiations that led to this? Can he unmoor himself from this specific plan in that way, or will he press on and try and get it to a vote?

The next steps could decide more than Infantino’s future.